


Dragon Mating Rituals

by stellacanta



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13698405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta
Summary: A dragonrider!AUThe black dragon has been disappearing lately and the red dragon is antsy. Shiro wonders if the two are somehow related.





	Dragon Mating Rituals

It had all started with Shiro noticing that Black had taken to long and frequent scouting flights around the kingdom. He had stared at the distant figure of his dragon circling the trees and weaving through mountains with confusion before he had gone back to his usual task of training the recruits and strategizing with Princess Allura. The black paladin had figured that his dragon would return to stables for the night. (Only he hadn’t, and the stall that was set aside for the black dragon was cold and empty.)

“ _Black_ ,” Shiro had asked his dragon through the bond that all dragons and their riders shared. “ _Are you okay?_ ” He only got an angry huff in response from his dragon. It was followed by an angry jumble of words and thoughts and all he could unravel from it was the red dragon, and that there had been lustful gazes, frequent encroachment of personal space, discomfort, and the need to just _go_. Shiro shifted his stance as he wondered what was going on through his dragon’s head, and what the red dragon had to do with it.

……

“Has Red been acting strangely lately,” he had asked Keith one day when he bumped into him in the dragon stables.

Keith had only given him a blank, if slightly confused look. “Strange? Not that I’ve seen- does this have anything to do with why Black has been gone for so long? Red’s been asking after him for a while recently.” The red paladin paused a bit in thought. “Ever since Black started his longs flights now that I think about it. Do you have any clue why Black doesn’t want her around? They’ve always been pretty close.”

A wry smile spread across Shiro’s face as he hmm’d in thought. It was pretty strange, now that Keith had pointed it out. The black and red dragons had always been close ever since he had smuggled the red dragon egg and the black dragon hatchling out to Keith when he was captured by the Galra. When Red hatched, she had always clung onto Black, despite the bond she had shared with Keith. Black had been the one to teach Red how to fly, how to hunt, and how to call forth the innate magic that all dragons shared. Even after they moved to the Castle of Dragons, Red and Black were nigh inseparable. So, to have Black suddenly shun Red’s company when he seemed to take comfort in it before- “Well I tried to ask Black what was wrong, but he didn’t give me a straight answer. All I got out of it was that it seemed to have something to do with Red, so that’s why I figured I might as well ask you if Red has been acting strangely lately.”

A thoughtful look formed on Keith’s face as he looked towards the stall of the red dragon. In the darkness, he could just make out the faint glint of her ruby red scales. Red looked to be moping and would occasionally snort and lift her snout in direction of the stall of the black dragon, which just so happened to be next to hers. It was hard to see, but there seemed to be a wistful look on her face. Concerned for his companion, Keith sent a questioning thought towards his dragon. He only got back a sense of longing, of a pressing need to be with another of her kind, and a growing heat deep in her belly. Keith wrinkled his nose at the stray lustful thoughts involving the black dragon that crossed their bond. There were some things about dragon relationships that he simply did not need to know.

“Keith?”

Keith turned back towards Shiro at the question. “Ah, sorry. Red just seems to really miss having Black around. If she did something to drive him off, well-“ Keith shrugged. “-She doesn’t seem to feel apologetic about anything in particular.”

“Hmm,” Shiro glanced briefly in the direction of the red dragon before he turned to look at the open doors of the stable and the forest off in the distance. “I wonder what could have driven him off then.”

……

Shiro didn’t get the chance to see his dragon until a few days after the encounter with Keith in the stables, busy with strategy meetings and training as he was. He noted that the black dragon was sleeping in a crudely made circle of charred stone. Black looked up at the noise that Shiro made upon entering the clearing. “You traded in your nice stall in the stables for this? Don’t you get cold at night?”

The black dragon made a low rumble that Shiro came to associate with laughter. He watched as the large beast lazily stretched his wings and gave a few abortive flaps. He cautiously eyed the barbed tail that thrashed to and fro before it curled up against the black dragon’s side. The tip twitching like that of an overeager cat. The black dragon craned his neck to regard his rider, blowing a few affectionate strands of smoke in Shiro’s direction. Shiro wrinkled his nose when the smoke encircled him and reached over to stroke his dragon’s snout. Black gave a slightly higher pitched rumble this time, a noise similar to a cat’s purr. A wry smile formed on his face. Even in the short time they had been apart, he had missed the black dragon’s presence.

“ _Have you not noticed the stones around me_ ,” the black dragon replied in his booming mental voice, talons clicked on one of the stones in question. “ _They are quite warm and comfortable at night when I heat them_.” The dragon craned his neck away from his rider and looked up at the tips of the trees around them, almost as if he could see the castle beyond the forest from this vantage point. “ _I did not expect to see you here, Shiro. Has something happened in the capital that would require my presence?_ ”

“What? Can a rider not miss his dragon nowadays?” The black dragon looked down at him and gave another low, rumbling chuckle. Shiro couldn’t help the answering chuckle that he gave. “Nothing’s happened in the capital, so you don’t have to worry about needing to go off on an excursion about the Galra, but I am curious about what drove you out here. I know it has something to do with the red dragon, but Keith hasn’t noticed anything off about her lately. Apparently, she really misses having you around though. Not that I’d blame her, you two were always close.” He looked towards his dragon. His dragon who no longer seemed to be able to meet his eye. Shiro pressed his lip in a thin line and wondered just what had happened between the red and black dragons that Black would go this far. “Did something happen?”

Black craned his neck back up at the sky, an unreadable look on his face. “ _It is starting to get late._ ” Shiro looked to his dragon, confused by the sudden change in topic. The dragon gestured with his snout towards the sky which was already starting to shift from bright blue to deep orange. “ _Look, the sun has almost sunk below the horizon. If you set out now, night will have fallen by time you reached the outer walls of the capital._ ” The black dragon unfurled his wings and lowered his torso to the ground. “ _We have not flown together in quite some time. Come Shiro, I will take you back._ ”

Shiro made a face as if he was about to argue with his dragon, but then decided better of it. Without a word, he clambered onto the dragon’s back as he had done so many times before. When he had sat down at his usual place on Black’s upper back, right above the wings, the black dragon soared into the air with one strong downstroke and began the flight back towards the capital.

“You’re not going to tell me why you left then,” Shiro asked over the wind that blew past them.

The black dragon roared with laughter. “ _Ah, but that is not my story to tell Shiro._ ” Gentle amusement and affectionate reassurance washed over him when Shiro pouted in response. The dragon glanced down at the wide swaths of forest beneath them. “ _It has been getting warmer lately has it not? The snows are starting to melt, and the rivers are beginning to run again._ ”

“Yes, spring is just on the horizon. Pretty soon the songbirds will have returned to mark the end of winter.” Shiro paused as he thought of a stray conversation he had had with Princess Allura. “The princess is thinking of having a feast soon. This winter has been rather dreary, and the war effort seems never ending. She thinks that it will bring some cheer and boost morale amongst those living in the capital. When the first songbird arrives, she says, and she even managed to corral some children into keeping watch for them.”

” _Is that right?_ ” Shiro simply nodded to the mental question. “ _Such a thoughtful leader, our princess is. It is an honor to serve her._ ” The pair of them flew in silence until finally the forest thinned and the walls of the capital came into view. “ _Soon the songbirds will return, and with them their mating calls and then the gentle chirps of chicks in their nests,_ ” the black dragon mused as he landed with a gentle thump in front of the dragon stables.

Shiro gave his dragon a baffled look as he clambered off Black’s back. Around them, a crowd was starting to form as news spread that the black dragon had returned. Something that Shiro only barely noticed. “What do you mean by that?” The black dragon gave an amused puff of smoke in response, but otherwise didn’t respond.

“Shiro!?” Shiro turned around at the sound of his name just in time to see Keith approach the two of them at a quick pace. “And you brought Black back with you.”

Shiro glanced towards his dragon who acted as though he didn’t heard the comment that Keith made. “Ah, yeah.” He looked back to Keith who had the beginnings of a wry grin on his face. “I was wondering where he was hiding all this time and found him out in the forest. I know I sorta left without letting anyone know where I was going, sorry if I worried you needlessly like that.”

Keith shook his head as he placed a hand Shiro’s upper arm. “No need to apologize, you got back before Princess Allura decided to send out a patrol looking for you. So no harm’s done there.” Keith looked up at the black dragon who seemed to be staring at something above the pair. “It’s a good thing that you brought Black back with you. Red was starting to get a bit antsy and drive me up the wall with her-“

A low, questioning growl caught both Keith’s and Shiro’s attention as they looked towards the entrance to the stables. The red dragon stuck her neck out of the stables as if to see what the ruckus was all about. She gave a warbling chirp when she noticed the black dragon sitting behind the pair and leapt at the black dragon, her wings slightly outstretched to carry her farther along. Shiro managed to just pull Keith out of the way as the two dragons collided and the red dragon wrapped herself around the much larger black dragon, her head rubbing against his as if he had been gone for a very long time and she hadn’t expected to see him again. (Perhaps he had, the two dragons were rarely apart from each other for an extended amount of time after all.)

“So she really missed him huh,” Shiro couldn’t help but say as he watched the two dragons chirp and growl softly at one another.

“Yep.” There was a soft smile on Keith’s face as he watched the two dragons.

Shiro was about to respond when he noticed the black dragon freeze suddenly when the red dragon placed her head on his neck and began to make a purr-like rumble, her tail swishing behind her. The black dragon turned his head to stare at something behind them. Eyes narrowed, Shiro turned around to see that the blue dragon seemed to be hiding in the doorway of the dragon stables, watching the two dragons interact. “Wha-“ Before he could finish his question, the blue dragon gave a sharp whine.

The red dragon stopped her purring and her tail stilled behind her. She lifted her head and began to stare at the black dragon, her movement just so happening to block the black dragon’s line of sight into the stables. The black dragon noticed what she was doing and he huffed out, thin lines of smoke streaming from his snout. In the distance, the blue dragon gave another sharp whine.

The red dragon tore herself off the black dragon and dove at the blue dragon with an earsplitting roar. Even Keith looked shocked by his dragon’s actions as the red dragon attempted to attack the blue dragon and the blue dragon began to fight back.

“You haven’t noticed anything strange about Red lately huh?”

“Wha- This is the first time this has happened, Shiro! She’s been a bit grouchy, but she hasn’t tried to take it out on the other dragons!”

Shiro turned to Black as Keith ran off to try to stop the dragons from fighting. The black dragon seemed contrite as he looked at him. The dragon huffed out a face-full of smoke and Shiro coughed as the cloud of smoke hit him. “ _Ah, sorry Shiro._ ” The black dragon drew his wings up and looked towards the two dragons fighting in the distance. “ _I think I should leave now, before things get worse._ ”

“Before things get- why? What do you think is going to happen?” His dragon didn’t say a word as he leapt into the air. “Will you still be where I found you last,” Shiro screamed into the sky.

“ _I think it is best that I find a different place. Don’t come looking for me_ ,” the black dragon replied after a long moment and began to fly off.

At the entrance to the stables the red dragon noticed the black dragon was airborne and turned her attention away from the blue dragon. She deftly avoided a bite to the neck and leapt into the air as if she intended to follow the black dragon. The black dragon noticed her and sent her careening back to the ground with a powerful roar. There was a look of hurt on the red dragon’s face as she watched the black dragon turn his back to her and fly away.

……

The red dragon kept staring at him whenever he came into the stables. Shiro remarked on it to Keith after the fifth time he looked up to find her staring right at him.

Keith just shrugged. “She thinks you know where Black is.” He got an enraged snarl from the red dragon and he sighed in exasperation. “Okay, she thinks you know where Black is and you’re hiding the location from us at his request. She wants you to lead us there.” The red dragon gave a self-satisfied nod in agreement.

Shiro just gave Keith a blank stare. “I don’t know where the black dragon is though.” The red dragon snarled in annoyance. He gave her an exasperated look. “I honestly don’t know. Black blocked off the connection as soon as he left. The only communication that I’ve gotten from him is that he’s fine and he’s somewhere high and rocky, but managed to make a cozy nest for himself. High and rocky could describe _any_ mountain in the region and there are several in Altea. Nevermind the ones in Daibazaal.” He sighed at the look that Keith gave him when he brought up the kingdom that the Galra controlled. “Yes, the black dragon could be in Galra territory, Keith. There are plenty of uninhabited nooks and crannies there and Black would have presumably been flying high enough that no one would notice him.”

There was a snort somewhere behind him. He watched as Keith and the red dragon exchanged a glance. Perhaps more than a glance if the look that crossed Keith’s face was anything to go by. “Red wants you to take us where the black dragon was hiding before. She thinks there might be a clue there.”

Shiro gave an unimpressed look at the both of them. “By horseback or-“

“-she’ll fly us there if you can let her know where to land.”

“I still think it would be easier if I went there by horseback and signaled for her where to land.”

It seemed that the red dragon wouldn’t accept Shiro’s rejection of her offer as she hounded the two onto her back the next day. “Sorry Shiro, she’s pretty insistent,” Keith said in response to Shiro’s grumbles. Shiro didn’t say a word as he placed his arms around Keith’s sides. Sometimes he forgot how much smaller the other dragons were in relation to the black dragon, the red dragon being the smallest of them all. He tried to ignore how warm Keith was pressed against his chest. He hoped that Keith didn’t notice how tightly he held onto him.

When they found the clearing the black dragon had been in, the red dragon sniffed around at the circle of rocks that the black dragon had arranged. Shiro watched as she tilted her head from side and side and placed a claw on one of the rocks. He continued to watch as she flicked her tail back and forth and looked up at the sky. The red dragon looked back to the rocks, sniffed at them, and then looked at Keith.

“Did she find something,” Shiro asked as he placed one hand on Keith’s shoulder.

Keith turned back to look at him. “I think she did.” A smile formed slowly on his face. “I think she knows where your dragon might be.”

……

They found the black dragon high on a mountainside cave a half-day’s flight from the capital. The sun was beginning to set when they landed on the cliff outside the cave. Black gave Shiro a stern look as he climbed off the red dragon’s back. “ _Sorry Black. The red dragon wanted to find you really badly, and she practically hounded me to where you stayed at last. Maybe you shouldn’t have chosen the spot where you got those rocks?”_ The black dragon continued to stare at him for a long moment and then looked away to look at the red dragon.

The dragons looked at each other for a long moment before the black dragon bowed his head and the red dragon mimicked his action. The red dragon whined when she lifted her head. A moment later she lowered her torso to the ground and lifted her haunches, a pleading look in her eyes. Shiro raised an eyebrow at her action.

The black dragon snorted and flew into the air above her head. The red dragon whined as she flew after him, giving chase. Shiro and Keith watched as the two chased and swooped around each other in the air above their heads. “So,” Shiro said, breaking the silence as they watched the two dragons entwine themselves in midair. “Did you know anything about this?”

Keith shook his head. “No? I knew that Red really missed Black, but this?” He paused for a moment. “Actually, Lance suspected that Blue might have been in heat after the fight between Blue and Red. Apparently, she was complaining about being uncomfortable and desiring a strong presence to be around her, hence the whining when she saw Black. I didn’t think that Red was experiencing the same thing.”

Shiro regarded him for a moment and then turned to look back at the pair of dragons who had landed on a ledge on another mountain close by. “ _I do not know if you have realized,_ ” said Black suddenly over their bond. “ _But dragons are intimately connected with their riders. So much so that they echo the feelings that their riders have-_ “ The black dragon trailed off meaningfully. A blush formed on Shiro’s face when he realized what those words meant.

He looked towards Keith who also looked a bit red. “So, uh-“ Keith looked at him when he spoke. “-I guess, while our dragons are, um-“

“-if you’re trying to ask me to snuggle for warmth, then, yes, I want to too. Besides-“ Keith scowled. “-I don’t think we’re going to be headed back to the stables any time soon.” He jerked his head towards the ledge where the two dragons were still wrapped around one another. “It looks like our ride back is a bit distracted at the moment.”

Shiro just gave a bark of laughter before he was pulled into a tight embrace by Keith. He looked one last time in the direction of the dragons before Keith pulled him into kiss and all thoughts left his mind. Dragons and riders really did echo each other didn’t they?


End file.
